Men Who Marry Young Make More Money, But This Isn't The Case For Women

Deciding to marry in your 20s is a good career move for
men, but not so much for women.

In her 2013 TEDtalk, University of Virginia clinical
psychologist Meg Jay explained that around two-thirds of
lifetime wage growth occurs during the first decade of your
career, so it makes sense to delay marriage so that you can focus
on your profession during these years.

The
surprising thing is, women who decide to marry later benefit much
more than those who tie the knot in their 20s, but the opposite
is true for men. A recent report published
by the University of Virginia's National Marriage Project
titled "Knot Yet: The Benefits and
Costs of Delayed Marriage in America" says that
college-educated women who settle down in their 30s — on average
— bring in 56 percent more personal annual income by their
mid-30s than those who marry a decade earlier. The graph below
shows this:

American Community Survey

On the other
hand, men who marry in their 20s —regardless of education —
make more money than those who marry after the age of 30.
The graph below shows this: American Community Survey

With the
upsurge of females in the workforce
in that last decade, women are still playing "catch up" with
their male counterparts when it comes to salary
and
a seat on executive boards, so any break from their
professional stride to focus on having a family risks putting a
detrimental dent in climbing the corporate ladder. In short,
women are "reaping most of the
benefits [from a] later marriage," wrote Eleanor Barkhorn in
a piece published in
The Atlantic.

But if this is the case, then why doesn't the same hold true for
men? The answer could point at many different factors, but one of
the reasons could be men are just more productive after settling
down because they can now focus and are more sure of themselves
compared to single men.

Whatever the argument is, it seems being confident in your
personal future plays a vital
role in the confidence you'll have in your professional future,
but until we come closer to solving the wage inequalities between
men and women in the workplace, we'll continue to have
differences in what's considered the "right time" for either
gender to marry.